State education chief delays controversial test rule

High school freshmen and their parents no longer have to worry about new state exams affecting their grades this year. Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott agreed Friday to a one-year delay of a controversial rule.

Scott’s decision followed two unusual letters this week from key lawmakers, who urged delaying implementation of a state law that calls for students’ scores on new, more challenging standardized tests to count for 15 percent of their course grades.

Scott said in a statement Friday afternoon that he agreed to postpone the rule after consulting with lawmakers and Gov. Rick Perry’s office.

Superintendents and parents had protested in recent months that the law, passed in 2007 and set to take effect this year, would hurt students’ grade-point averages and their chances of getting into top colleges. An influential business association countered that the grade rule was important to ensure that students took the tests seriously, as their scores are supposed to shine a light on their preparedness for college.

Scott, an appointee of Perry, already had granted schools a one-year break from receiving accountability ratings based on the new exams, called the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR. In letters sent this week, the chairmen of the Senate and House education committees said Scott had the power to grant students a similar one-year break, even though the law didn’t explicitly mention the idea.

“I remain committed to rigorous public school accountability,” Scott said in a statement. “The new assessment system will be better for students and educators, and will better ensure Texas students are ready for postsecondary success.”

This year’s ninth-graders, the first to take the new end-of-course exams, are not off the hook entirely. They still have to pass the exams in order to graduate from high school. The law requires that students take 12 end-of-course exams in core high school subjects: English, math, science and social studies. The students will have to meet a certain minimum score on each test and a cumulative passing score by subject.

Under the state’s old testing system, high school students had to pass four exams to graduate, and the scores did not count toward their grades.